


vocal ink

by sarahyyy



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, Pining, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 18:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1575755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahyyy/pseuds/sarahyyy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Officially, we don’t have a leader, everyone here is equal,” Courfeyrac says, keeping his voice low as Enjolras starts his speech, “but if we did, <i>and we don’t</i>, it would be Enjolras.” He looks over to Marius. “Do not approach him. Let him come to you, let him be the first to initiate conversation, and for the love of God, <i>do not mention soulmates</i>.”</p><p>(Or, the soulmate tattoo AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	vocal ink

“Officially, we don’t have a leader, everyone here is equal,” Courfeyrac says, keeping his voice low as Enjolras starts his speech, “but if we did, _and we don’t_ , it would be Enjolras.” He looks over to Marius. “Do not approach him. Let him come to you, let him be the first to initiate conversation, and for the love of God, _do not mention soulmates_.”

“Oh,” Marius says, startled at the force behind Courfeyrac’s words. “I wouldn’t ask to see his tattoo,” he says. “That’s private, and—”

“It’s not just that,” Courfeyrac tells him, lips tipping up in a small smile. “You can’t talk to him about it at all, even in the context of other people. You can’t even talk about your own tattoo, like you did with me.” 

Marius and Courfeyrac met in the library, when Courfeyrac offered to share his table with Marius in exchange for one of Marius’ cookies. Marius noticed midway through their studying session that Courfeyrac was staring curiously at his tattoo, and tugged his sleeve up higher to show Courfeyrac the whole sentence, waving off Courfeyrac’s embarrassed apology.

Marius’ look of mild confusion settles into a look of sympathy, and he rubs at his arm, where he knows the words _if my father sees you here, he’s going to call the police_ are printed in neat letters on his skin. “Is he without a tattoo?” Marius whispers sadly, because while it’s not unheard of, it is somewhat uncommon. His own tattoo —or, well, the knowledge that there’s someone out there waiting for him— has gotten him through the toughest of times. He wouldn’t really know what to do without it.

“It’s a possibility. I don’t know, actually.” Courfeyrac shrugs. “He’s never mentioned, and we’ve never asked,” Courfeyrac tells him. “He knows he is free to talk to us about it, and he will if he wants to.”

The idea that Enjolras might be without a soulmate tattoo still makes Marius frown, and when Courfeyrac catches him frowning, he bumps their shoulders together, grinning a little. 

“He knows he doesn’t need a tattoo to be loved unconditionally by someone,” Courfeyrac assures Marius, and his smile is so infectious that Marius has to return it. “Les Amis is like a family. He’s always had us, and now he has you.”

—

It takes Enjolras until the second Les Amis meeting at the Musain to come up to Marius. For a moment he just stands in front of Marius, as if sizing him up. Marius thinks of saying something, _anything_ , because the scrutiny is making him fidget, but he catches Courfeyrac’s eye from across the room and remembers that he is supposed to let Enjolras initiate conversation. 

It seems an age before Enjolras nods his head slightly, as if pleased with whatever he sees in Marius, and says, “Welcome to Les Amis, Marius. How did you find the meeting?”

It feels a little like he’s been officially accepted into Les Amis, and the beam on his face lasts long after he leaves the Musain that evening. 

—

Sometime two months after his first Les Amis meeting, Marius gets invited to A Thing at Courfeyrac’s. That’s exactly how Courfeyrac phrases it when he texts Marius.

 **From: Courfeyrac**  
You are invited to A Thing at my place; 6:30 p.m., if you’re late, bring food to appease the Gods. 

He means not to be late, but he’d been caught up in one of the texts he was translating, and couldn’t stop his work until it was done. He picks up two pizzas on the way to Courfeyrac’s, and is two blocks away from the pizza joint when he realises that Courfeyrac never told him how big this Thing was, and doubles back to get two other pizzas, and then another vegetarian pizza, and a gluten free pizza, just to be safe. 

He shows up at Courfeyrac’s an hour late with six pizzas.

“You can’t bully the new guy into buying us food,” Eponine yells at Courfeyrac, even as she grins and calls dibs on one of the pizzas ( _“yes, the whole fucking pizza, Bahorel, I will stab you if you come near it”_ ), before flopping onto the couch next to Musichetta. 

“I meant it as a joke!” Courfeyrac cries, mortified. “We’ll all chip in for the pizza, Marius. I didn’t think you would actually bring food.”

Marius laughs. “Don’t worry about it. I felt bad about being late,” he says, and then casts his eyes around the room. All of them Amis are accounted for, except— “Where’s Enjolras?”

“Enjolras has a paper to write,” Feuilly tells him.

Eponine snorts. “When does he not?”

“He came to your birthday party,” Combeferre reminds her. “He even stayed till the end.”

“That was because we threatened to drink and drive and made him stay to be our designated driver, though,” Bossuet pipes up, grinning. 

“We wouldn’t have done it, and Enjolras knows,” Courfeyrac says. “Enjolras stayed because he _looooooves_ us.”

“I’m not saying he doesn’t,” Eponine says, taking a bite out of her slice of pizza and talking through it. “I’m just telling Marius that it’s highly unlikely that he’ll find Enjolras joining us for movie night.”

“Oh, is that what this is?” Marius asks. “Courfeyrac just called it A Thing. I thought it might be an unscheduled meeting or something.”

“Courf just likes to call everything A Thing because it reminds him of Combeferre,” Bahorel says, snorting. “Have you heard the story?”

Marius shakes his head. When he’d met Courfeyrac at the library, Courfeyrac had been happy to let him prattle on about his own soulmate tattoo, and didn’t talk about his beyond showing Marius the _Christ, Courfeyrac, wait_ tattooed across his stomach. 

“These two idiots,” Musichetta says, dipping chin in the general direction of Combeferre and Courfeyrac, who were both sitting next to each other, cross-legged on the floor, “have been in love with each other since the beginning of time.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” Combeferre points out.

“Not by much,” Musichetta says dismissively, and Eponine mimes gagging when Courfeyrac turns over to Combeferre and repeats the words against his upturned lips. “Anyway,” Musichetta continues, “they were in love with each other, but too afraid to say anything about it, until Courfeyrac’s eighteenth birthday. He was with Combeferre when he felt the sear, and knew that he’d gotten his tattoo, and wanted to excuse himself to check. So he said to Combeferre—”

“I said _I have to go do A Thing_ ,” Courfeyrac finishes for Musichetta, and Combeferre lifts his left hand palm out to show Marius the words printed across his palm, the _A_ and _T_ capitalised. “And Combeferre stopped me, and the rest is history.”

“He cried,” Joly tells Marius in a conspiratorial whisper. 

Courfeyrac squawks indignantly.

“He did,” Combeferre confirms, laughing and pulling Courfeyrac closer to him. “I did too.”

The night progresses from there. Instead of watching a movie, they decide to all tell Marius about their tattoos while Enjolras wasn’t with them. 

Marius’ assumption that Joly and Bossuet roped Musichetta into their relationship for variety is corrected when they all reveal two separate soulmate tattoos. He blushes through an apology and they graciously wave him off. 

“They found each other first,” Musichetta tells him, “so they’ve loved each other for longer, but not more.”

Bahorel shucks off his shirt to show Marius the _YOU FUCKING FUCK_ tattooed across his back in bold capital letters, beaming proudly, and Feuilly sighs as he lifts his shirt up to show Marius three lines of text on his stomach, all of them profanities. 

“I kept it concise and to the point,” Feuilly says dryly. 

Bahorel grins. “I knew the moment I saw him,” he tells Marius. “I didn’t even have to hear him say anything, I _knew_ it was him, and fuck, I deserved to be as profane as I wanted, I went and struck soulmate jackpot, didn’t I?”

“Idiot,” Feuilly says, but he runs his thumb over the back of Bahorel’s hand fondly. 

“Has _everyone_ here found their soulmate?” Marius asks, shaking his head in amusement. 

“I’m working on it,” Jehan tells him. He tugs the collar of his shirt down to show Marius three Chinese characters inked below his collarbone. 

“' _Sorry_ ',” Marius translates. 

Jehan beams at him. “You speak Chinese?”

“A little,” Marius tells him. 

“I’ve been taking lessons,” Jehan tells him. 

“They think that’s where they’ll meet their soulmate,” Courfeyrac adds. 

Jehan nods at that. “They’re offering classes at the community centre, and I just had this gut feeling that I needed to go.” He rubs at his tattoo, smiling softly. “But enough of me, let Eponine show you hers.”

Eponine pauses right where she’s reaching for another piece of pizza and stands up from the couch instead. She makes her way to Marius, lifts her shirt slightly, showing him the _not on the face_ she has on her side. 

“Montparnasse has _if you come any closer, I swear I will stab you_ on his arm,” Eponine tells Marius. “But we’re not together anymore.”

Marius gasps. “Why?”

Eponine shrugs. “Reasons,” she says. “I refuse to decide to love someone just because a fucking tattoo tells me I have to.” 

“But— He’s your soulmate,” Marius says. “He’s _right_ for you.”

“If Montparnasse is right for me, maybe someone wrong would hurt less,” Eponine says, and settles back onto the couch, reaching for another piece of pizza. 

And Marius knows that she’s done talking about the subject, but he wants to argue, wants to tell Eponine that you aren’t supposed to feel _complete_ without your soulmate. He knows because there’s an emptiness inside of him, a sense of longing, a sense of _loneliness_ , that he knows cannot be filled until he meets his soulmate. He wonders if Eponine feels like this too, wonders what could make her choose to willingly feel like this when she already has a way to make it stop. 

He doesn’t say anything, though, because there is a sadness in the eyes of all their other friends, and he knows that there is a story behind it, a reason why she chose to be alone. 

He wonders if Enjolras’ story is anything like hers.

—

Marius shows up at the Musain just in time for Enjolras to shoulder past him and storm out of the café. No-one seems to be coming after him, and Marius briefly thinks about going after Enjolras, but he doesn’t think Enjolras would appreciate the company, _his_ company, of all people. He makes his way to the back room of the Musain instead.

“I saw Enjolras leaving,” Marius says tentatively. “Did I miss anything?”

Feuilly sighs and motions for Marius to sit down next to him and Bahorel, and waves a hand in the general direction of where Courfeyrac is sitting next to a scowling Combeferre, murmuring softly to him. 

“Combeferre had a little bit of a falling out with Enjolras,” he tells Marius, and Marius gapes at him. 

Bahorel grins at that. “It’s rare, but it’s been known to happen. They’ll sort themselves out really quickly, don’t worry.”

“Enjolras looked really angry,” Marius says, hushed. 

Feuilly sighed. “Their argument got personal towards the end,” he says. “Combeferre’s been having a bad day, so he’s a little edgier tonight.”

“Didn’t really quite catch most of it, but we definitely heard Combeferre saying the words _‘well, if you had a soulmate, then maybe you would know’_ ,” Bahorel says. “Enjolras just got up and left.”

“Shouldn’t— Shouldn’t someone go after him?” Marius asks, aghast. “Combeferre has Courfeyrac to calm him down. Surely Enjolras shouldn’t be left alone?”

“Enjolras needs time alone to calm down,” Feuilly tells him, and the wince on his face says that he’s speaking from experience. “He’ll yell at you if you go to him now. Trust me, give him some time.”

—

Marius, predictably, does not listen to good advice.

He gets Enjolras’ address off Eponine, who just raises her eyebrow at him, but doesn’t say anything beyond telling him Enjolras’ address. He makes his way to Enjolras’ place on foot, Maps on his phone informing him that it is only six blocks away, and finds apartment 32A relatively easy. The door is slightly ajar and he frown to himself as he knocks lightly. 

“Enjolras?” he calls out, but there is only silence from inside. He doesn’t really know why he pushes the door open, or why he walks into the apartment without permission from Enjolras —he strongly believes in the rights to privacy— but he does so, and tells himself that it’s okay, he just wants to see if Enjolras is alright, and if he’s not in there, well, then Marius can leave and help Enjolras to lock the door behind him.

The apartment is dark; Enjolras probably didn’t come straight home. He is just about to turn and leave when he hears a distinctively female voice say, “If my father sees you here, he’s going to call the police.”

Marius’ feet catches on the rug and he stumbles to the ground in his haste to turn around, because he knows those words, _he knows those words_. 

The woman —his _soulmate_ — hits the light switch while Marius gets back onto his feet and oh, _oh_ —

“You’re lovely,” he breathes. 

Her eyes dart to his, lips curving into a smile slowly, before sweeps her hair to the side to show Marius her tattoo, the two words tucked behind her ear. “I’ve showed you mine,” she says, still smiling, “now show me yours.”

Marius hastily complies.

—

It’s another two months before Marius brings Cosette to the Musain for one of the Les Amis meetings. Cosette gets along splendidly with everyone, much to Marius’ relief. 

Everything goes well until after the meeting is adjourned, when Cosette tells Enjolras, “I live right across from you but I never did thank you, did I? You’re the reason Marius and I found each other.”

Marius’ eyes fly to Courfeyrac, only now remembering that he’d forgotten to tell Cosette about Enjolras’ _No Soulmate Talk_ rule, even though Courfeyrac had to told him to tell her. He’s seen Enjolras in a bad mood, and he doesn’t want Enjolras to be in a bad mood today, because what if he scares Cosette away? 

“ _Grantaire_!” he blurts out, and Cosette turns over to him, startled. “I mean, we should go now before we’re late for dinner with Grantaire.” 

“Oh,” Cosette says, nonchalant, “he doesn’t know to the way to the restaurant, so I told him to meet us here instead.” She turns her gaze back to Enjolras, and Marius silently prays that she doesn’t dive right back into the topic. “You should meet Grantaire,” she tells him, and Marius lets out an almost audible sigh of relief. “I think he’ll like what you’re doing with Les Amis. He’ll be purposefully contrary about everything you’re doing, but I think this is right down his alley.” 

Enjolras smiles at her politely. “You should bring him along the next time you come, then,” he tells her. “Any friend of yours would be welcome here.”

Cosette beams. “I’ll hold you to that,” she says. 

—

Cosette talks about Grantaire a lot. He’s her best friend, and he creeps into her conversations unwittingly more often than not. By Cosette’s fourth Les Amis meeting, almost everyone has heard about Grantaire.

“I feel like I know him already,” Eponine says. “You should bring him around soon so I can steal him as my best friend.”

“You’ll scare him away with the hundreds of knives you keep hidden on your body,” Cosette says with a laugh. “Grantaire will love you, and then he’ll dump me. I need to keep him to myself for as long as I can.”

“That’s not fair!” Joly says with a pout. “I’ve been dying to meet him since you told us about the story at the bar.”

Bahorel nods at that. “Anyone drunk on vodka who starts a bar fight against four men, _and wins_ , is someone I need to meet.”

“He rants about injustice a lot,” Marius tells Enjolras, who’s sitting right beside him, “but his views differ greatly from yours. You’ve always wanted to hear more a diverse opinion on the issues you’re discussing. I think you’ll like him.”

“He sounds interesting,” Enjolras says, and drums his fingers lightly on the table for a moment. “I think it’s about time we met Grantaire, Cosette,” he finally says. “Invite him to the next meeting, will you?”

—

“Okay, ground rules,” Marius says to Grantaire seriously. The last time he forgot to give Cosette the newcomer speech, he’d almost gotten her into trouble. He doesn’t want that to happen to Grantaire. “We don’t have a leader here because we’re all equal, but if we did—”

“It would be blondie in the red jacket,” Grantaire finishes for him. He snorts softly. “That much is evident.”

“Enjolras,” Marius tells him. “His name is Enjolras, and you can’t approach him, you need to wait for him to come to you, and let him have the first word—”

“Of course,” Grantaire says, shaking his head slightly, looking amused at how frazzled Marius sounds. 

“—and above all,” Marius continues, “you are not allowed to mention soulmates, not in any context.” Grantaire arches an eyebrow, curious, and Marius just shrugs at that. “I don’t know why he doesn’t like talking about it,” he tells Grantaire, “but he doesn’t, and we all respect that and try not to antagonise him.”

Grantaire hums under his breath and it’s true that Marius hasn’t know him for long, but he’s Cosette’s best friend and they both adore him so he’s just always around, and he _knows_ that hum. It’s a hum that speaks of nothing good. 

“Grantaire,” Marius says, trying to sound stern, even as he tries to catch Cosette’s eye, because if anyone can talk Grantaire out of a bad idea, it’s Cosette, but she’s engrossed in a conversation with Eponine and Musichetta, and doesn’t appear to even notice that Marius may very well have a crisis at hand.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Grantaire tells him, laughing softly. “I’m not going to do anything, Marius.”

—

“So, chief,” Grantaire drawls, walking up to Enjolras as Marius stares in horror from the back of the room, “why don’t you want to talk about soulmates?”

Enjolras is staring at Grantaire, lips parted in surprise. 

Marius scrambles onto his feet. “He’s new!” he yells. “He doesn’t know the rules! He needs to go, I’ll see him out!” He does, though, _he does_ , and he just loves doing things that he shouldn’t be doing, just to see what would happen. Marius should’ve taped him to the chair when he had a chance to.

Enjolras’ gaze doesn’t lift from Grantaire, even as he says, “Sit back down, Marius.”

Marius sits back down and rubs a hand over his face. They won’t be leaving the Musain anytime soon, if Enjolras is going to start ranting about how one’s existence doesn’t just depend on their soulmate, and how the concept of soulmates rob them of their autonomy to choose their own partners. Marius had to sit through it once, and thought to himself the whole depressing lecture that he would never suffer through another one again, but look how well that’s turning out. 

He waits for Enjolras to start ranting, but Enjolras doesn’t speak, just stares at Grantaire, the same way he stared at Marius before the first time he spoke to him, sizing him up, cataloguing him in his mind, and Grantaire doesn’t falter from the intensity of Enjolras’ face, just stares straight back, waiting for Enjolras’ answer. 

It’s a long, charged moment before Enjolras’ look of impassiveness melts into one of soft happiness. 

“I could grow to love you,” Enjolras says softly, and even from the back of the room, Marius hears the sharp breath Grantaire draws and the shaky huff of laughter he lets out.

He thinks back of his first meeting with Grantaire, where after telling the story about how he met Cosette (because Grantaire didn’t trust Cosette to be an unbiased narrator), Grantaire had lifted his shirt up to show Marius the _I could grow to love you_ printed in neat cursive on the skin right above his heart. He thinks back of how Cosette had jokingly complained about how Marius hadn’t come up with something as good as that, and how Grantaire had rolled his eyes, but smiled softly as he tugged his shirt back down. 

_Oh._

—

It isn’t until months later that Marius remembers to ask. 

“Hey, R,” he says, at their usual Sunday brunch, “why did Enjolras never show us his tattoo before? Why doesn’t he show it to us now?”

Grantaire laughs, so loud and bright and _happy_ , that it makes Marius’ lips tip up in a smile. When Grantaire’s laughter dies down, he winks at Marius and says, “It’s in a very inappropriate place.”

**Author's Note:**

> (Headcanon that when Enjolras gets his tattoo on his 18th birthday, he gets really confused because he's never had anything against talking about soulmates, but the more he thinks about it, the more he starts to understand that if he ever wants to meet his soulmate (and he does, he knows it's ridiculous, but _he does_ ), he needs to stop talking about soulmates, needs to shut the topic of conversation down and wait for the one person who will call him out on it.) 
> 
> Now with [bonus ficlet about Enjolras' tattoo](http://sarah-yyy.tumblr.com/post/150212890808/epiloguepost-fic-for-vocal-ink-im-so-curious)!
> 
> I'm [here](http://sarah-yyy.tumblr.com) on tumblr, come say hi!


End file.
